33 Disability Quotes

The only way to ensure that our promise to provide every opportunity for students with disabilities, and help them achieve their full potential, is to give our schools the dollars they need.

The third group [of society] are those irresponsible and reckless ones having little regard for the consequences of their acts, or whose religious scruples prevent their exercising control over their numbers. Many of this group are diseased, feeble-minded, and are of the pauper element dependent upon the normal and fit members of society for their support. There is no doubt in the minds of all thinking people that the procreation of this group should be stopped.

It is a waste of time to be angry about my disability. One has to get on with life and I haven't done badly. People won't have time for you if you are always angry or complaining.

The downside of my celebrity is that I cannot go anywhere in the world without being recognized. It is not enough for me to wear dark sunglasses and a wig. The wheelchair gives me away.

No history of the world can be complete which does not mention Mary Helen Keller... whose overcoming of her blindness and deafness were arguably victories more important than those of Alexander the Great, because they have implications still for every living person.

'I went to school for special education. I always assumed when I had the opportunity I would love to try and help kids with disabilities.'

The radio ad 'Hi, I'm Jeff Healey from the Jeff Healey Band. Don't drink and drive. I don't.' Well, I hope you don't drive sober either, Mr. Healey. You're blind, for God's sake!

I am blind, but I am able to read thanks to a wonderful new system known as broil. I'm sorry, I'll just feel that again.

The fact is that even if your body doesn't work the way it used to, the heart and the mind and the spirit are not diminished.

Of Beethoven - 'Beethoven's last quartets were written by a deaf man and should only be listened to by a deaf man'

On Christopher Reeve: 'If we can do the work that we can do in this country -- the work we will do when John Kerry is president -- people like Christopher Reeve are going to walk. Get up out of that wheelchair and walk again.'

[Learning difficulties are a cover for] rich parents with dumb kids...That's why 'Pinch' Sulzberger, the publisher of The New York Times, is alleged to have dyslexia - because he's retarded.

' In the last ten years, as editor in chief of Today's Caregiver Magazine, I have interviewed many people who are living in the public eye, all of them having something of importance to say to family caregivers. Most times they've become caregivers after becoming famous, usually due to themselves or a family member taking ill. Our keynote speaker today is unique in that he is a professionally trained caregiver before he became known to all of us. And through the unbelievable constraints that have been placed on his time, he's never lost sight of his goal of becoming a teacher and helping children living with developmental disabilities. Only his classroom has become a whole lot larger than he ever expected.

How awful it is not being able to see clearly any more! I have had to give up drawing and painting and for years now content myself with sculpture ... But if my eyesight continues to dim I won't even be able to model any more. What will I do with my days then?

I had gone to Miami Children's [Hospital] to do a book reading for my 'Noelle' book, and they [staff at The Brain Institute] introduced me to this project that they had. And it so beautifully coincides with my spinal cord research -- my Miami Project [to cure spinal paralysis] pet charity -- because, as you know, I was paralyzed and in a wheelchair. So, I want to be there for that cure. It makes me happy. I really feel privileged to be of service. From the day I can remember, you know -- as far back as I can remember in my memory --I wished to be of service in some way.

Having experience paralysis firsthand -- sixteen years ago -- I feel especially fortunate to have had a positive outcome despite a very negative prognosis. I vowed that I would do whatever was in my power to assist those already on their way to finding a cure. I urge anyone in a position to help to join us in taking on this challenge, knowing that we are closer than ever to a cure and to helping those that live in wheelchairs to 'get on their feet.'

The best chance disabled students have for productive adult lives comes from being mainstreamed among other students. My daughter Jade is living proof of that. She has a disability, but we have made sure that she has gotten the same kind of exposure as other kids her age. There are a few exceptions; there are students whose special needs are such that mainstreaming won't work for them. But in the majority of cases, mainstreaming should be supported, encouraged, and facilitated for disabled students.

Two weeks ago, the Supreme Court banned execution on retarded people and people in Texas are going, 'Shit, where's the fun now?' 'Cause they were zapping retarded people every other week, it was like 'Go sit on Santa's lap, Tommy!' [Electrical static] God dang! And I know the definition of retarded in Texas is pretty wide but... Its true! Even the Taliban is like, 'You people are crazy mutha-fuckers!'

People need not be limited by physical handicaps as long as they are not disabled in spirit.

'You know how when a dog is crippled you put his back legs in a wheelchair? I think Willie the Jackass really puts a smile on kids' faces. I drag the ass-end of the costume around the park cause I ain't got nobody to fill that spot. The back legs are crippled.' (from 'Willie the Jackass')

(On the BBC TV show Mock the Week the panel talk about Adam's fake leg): Yeah, i was going through customs, just a few days after the September 11th attacks so security was really tight. As I went through the barriers, my leg set off the alarm, so I had this guy come and feel me and he felt my leg and went 'Right, right what's this going on here then?' 'Ah mate, it's a wooden leg' '...Ah mate, just go through, just go through' '...but I could have a knife or something...' 'No mate, just go through, I don't wanna offend a spastic!'

How come there's no parking for midgets? You ever notice that? Not one spot in the fucking mall for midgets. Unbelievable. You want to know why? 'Cause there's no telethon for midgets. Nobody gives a fuck. The kind of humidity you get in Manhattan during the summer... by the time you even get to the front doors of the mall, they're passing out. You've got to piss on them to revive them. And I love midgets with those pumpkin heads, little bug legs. I never fucked one, I'll admit that. But I would do it. They're people. So they're a little light, all right. So, so you stick 'em on your dick, you can shave, shower, they don't get in the way. You throw 'em in a drawer when you're done. 'Yeah, use my socks as a pillow honey.' 'Wait, a mouse went under the table, get the fucker.' Could you imagine being a maitre d at a fancy restaurant and a couple midgets come in for dinner? What do you say? 'Table for, ugh, I don't know, fuck, three quarters?' Midgets, man. What do they do when a midget is missing? Put 'em on the back of a container of Half & Half?'

You ever date a chick with a hunch-fucking-back? I did. I'm in a grocery store with this chick, the security guards were all over her, because they thought she was trying to smuggle a turkey under the back of her fucking jacket. I had a hunch. I had a hunch they'd stop her with that bad fucking back. They should have a telethon for hunchbacks. That's- that's what I think. They bring 'em out on a string like a pack of camels. [mimics a hunchback walking] 'Bump be dump bump.' I think something could be done. Chip the fucking thing off. You ever date a chick with buck-fucking-teeth and a hunch-fucking-back? Huh? Oh, just trying to talk to a bucktooth fucking chick is incredible. [Forces his mouth into an overbite] 'Hey. You want to go to a movie?' 'Shut up stupid! Pop the cork on this bottle.' And to make love to a chick with buck-fucking-teeth and a hunch-fucking-back is a complete horror show. You're in bed with them and it's like you're on a seesaw. You know what I'm saying? They're like [forces his mouth into an overbite again] 'Ugh, it feels so good. It feels so good.' 'Shut up!'

Helluva thing in a man's life when you're all crippled up, can't take your babygirl out there on the dance floor there at the gymnasium. I can hear the song now...'Oops, I did it again...' (sobs) Goddang it!

You don't park a group of retards near a road and expect them not to be nailed by a flying Dodge Durango.

I now spend a good part of my day dreaming of times past, present and future. As I try to survive on 15 hours sleep a day, I have plenty of time to enjoy vivid dreams. Being completely wheel-chaired doesn't stop my mind from roaming the universe - on the contrary!

On a visit to the new National Assembly for Wales in Cardiff, he told a group of deaf children standing next to a Jamaican steel drum band, 'Deaf? If you are near there, no wonder you are deaf.'[3][1]

In 2002, speaking to a blind, wheelchair bound woman who was accompanied by her guide dog, he remarked : 'Do you know they're now producing eating dogs for the anorexics?'[11]

Alas! Your dear friend and servant Galileo has been for the last month hopelessly blind; so that this heaven, this earth, this universe, which I by my marvelous discoveries and clear demonstrations had enlarged a hundred thousand times beyond the belief of the wise men of bygone ages, henceforward for me is shrunk into such a small space as is filled by my own bodily sensations. Jan. 2, 1638, The private life of Galileo, pp.278-279.